http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozbnTScWups
(Addition: So, I gained a review on ‘War of Nytefall‘, but lost one on ‘Beginning of a Hero‘. I’m really coming to the end of my rope with this shit. What the hell is going on with Amazon when I gain nothing on a book for months and then I suddenly lose one that looks it’d been there for years?)
I’m writing this pretty far ahead of schedule only because I’m away for the weekend. This isn’t to say I’ll be quiet the whole time. My laptop will be with me even if I can only use it very sparingly. Got the phone too, so I can try to keep up with emails, twitter, and blog posts. I’ll be pretty slow to respond though. Last thing I want is to get accused of being antisocial. The manga I’ve stuffed into my backpack might be more easily accessible than the notebook. Not like I can write or read on the plane since even Dramamine doesn’t get the entire job done.
The main reason the laptop is coming with me is because I hope to hit publish on Quest of the Brokenhearted tomorrow morning before I head home. Everything has been uploaded and set up already. This means I can do the bits of promo at night, which will include sending out the HTML files to those who offered to help. Feel free to volunteer in the comments if you haven’t already. This clears my week, which will be a little crazy with the start of a summer camp and July 4th. Hard to get into projects when you have so much going on, which is why I decimated myself in the first half of the year. Pushing Ichabod Brooks back a year takes even more of the edge off, so I can dive into outlining and editing once Raven’s Wrath is done. That’s the October story, which I already started.
With it being summer, I don’t really know what else to talk about. The week was preparing for the trip and entertaining the kid. Probably let him play video games a bit too much, but some of them were designed to help him with math. I was given a cursive packet for him to finish over the summer too. We’ve made decent progress and he’s good at writing them with a guide. Memory isn’t there yet. The big event was seeing ‘Incredibles 2’, which was a lot of fun. My son liked it so much that he wanted the junior novelization and will be reading that for his summer reading program. He got a novelization of ‘Hotel Transylvania 3’ too. We’re seeing that he will read chapter books if they’re on topics he already loves like Pokemon, superheroes, or various movies. That’s good to know for the future since it’s still a challenge.
I feel a little bad that I can’t deliver a lot of big news here. Focused more on parenting than writing, which isn’t something I can really talk about. For example, I found a package of 100 water balloons in the basement. So, I bought a plastic bat and filled them all up for ‘Water Balloon Baseball’. I only pitched while my son swung. Those balloons were tougher than we expected, so they would bounce off the bat and explode on the ground. It worked better with a brick wall behind him. As much fun as this sounds, you really had to be there for the full effect. I didn’t take any pictures because I was busy throwing water balloons and having fun myself. My wife is the parent who loves taking pictures of everything. She was at work, so all I had was a picture of a drenched kid standing amid the ruins of 100 broken water balloons.
Maybe writing this so early in the week is making things tough. The trip is on my mind and I’m starting to get a little anxiety about everything in general. Had a few bad attacks that were stirred by dreams since I woke up feeling like I was on a medieval torture rack. No idea what I was dreaming of though. Something I’m going to do next week is contact a therapist to talk about this. I wanted to stick with what I had, but I’ve been urged to see someone. I’ll admit that my concern here is money since my wife, son, and I seem to have almost 10 doctors for various things. I probably won’t talk much about this outside of the Anxiety Journal. That segment is going well, but I assume it’ll cool off a bit with the summer starting. People really don’t like talking about such problems during a time when we’re supposed to be having fun.
So, goals of the week?
- Survive trip.
- Publish and promote Quest of the Brokenhearted. (Anybody know any free promo sites?)
- Bring the son to his morning camp.
- Continue working on Raven’s Wrath. Maybe get some extra writing time in on July 4th.
- Read more ‘Bleach’ and get more ‘Marchen Awakens Romance’.
- Work on the cursive packet.
- Surrender dinner plans to someone else.
- Contact therapist.
- Ponder questions about the state of humanity.
Legends of Windemere 
Best wishes for the trip.
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Thanks. We’re just trying to avoid the heat right now.
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Me too.
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Hope you have a great trip!
I looked up Marchen Awakens Romance. Sounds really good!
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It’s from the same guy who did ‘Flame of Recca’ and it’s fairly similar. Characters have tools that each have unique powers, which makes for fun battles. It’s only half the length though. Planning on reading the last 10 after they come in. Then, it’s back to switching between ‘Bleach’ and ‘YuYu Hakusho’.
Trip is going smoothly so far. Got some time to set up stuff for tomorrow’s big release. Getting nervous about that since it’s summer.
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Have fun and try to leave the stress behind. Amazon will do what Amazon wants, we just have to go with the flow. I would suggest asking your readers to post their reviews to BookBub as they send it out as recommendations to your followers, win-win. 🙂
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Thanks. The stress might be catching up with me because of the heat. At least it feels like it is. I don’t know how many of my blog readers leave reviews. I don’t go around asking or directing people for them too. Keep thinking Amazon will punish for that.
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Hard to say what the Zon will punish us for next, but I usually leave a little thank you message at the end of my stories and links to Goodreads and BookBub if they enjoyed the story. Not sure how much good it does though 🙂
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Not a bad idea. I’m waiting for Amazon to punish for using them as a platform. 😜
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Try to have some fun and enjoy the down time. I decided my current project would be stress free. The only deadlines are the ones I set, so I’m not setting any. Makes it all so much more fun.
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It’s been okay. Had some quiet time to set up a few things for tomorrow’s release. I just want to see if July 4th can help or hurt a new release. Always wondered about that.
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Enhanced League was timed for the Allstar Break. It popped and fizzled. Not exactly July 4.
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I see what you mean. Baseball would have a better holiday appeal than fantasy adventure.
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You know how I feel about summer releases, but it seems like everybody has one now.
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I do see more than usual this year. Maybe people are trying to make up for it being a slow year in general.
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Don’t know. I’m glad not to have something close right now. Maybe sometime after snow flies.
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Good luck with everything, I hope you’re trip has been enjoyable. I’ll keep my eyes open for HTML file (I think I volunteered a few weeks ago).
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Thanks. I have you on the list.
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Since – if I’m remembering correctly, because I can’t be bothered to go look – one of your goals for the Summer involves a focus on parent time, I’d say your week went reasonably well.
Talking to someone could help. You can always stop the visits if you find it isn’t helping after all.
Hope the trip is going well.
Good luck with the book launch.
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Thanks. Good point on stopping the visits. It could be that I don’t need it for long either.
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It could, and hat would be awesome!
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Enjoy the trip, Charles. The water balloon baseball sounded terrific.
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Thanks. Heading back in 2 hours. Had some trouble sleeping, but I benefitted. New book is published and promoted.
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Terrific!
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